No lie: Telling nothing but the truth is truly difficult for most

Polls find the average person will admit to telling two lies a day, even as lab experiments reveal that as many fibs are told in just 10 minutes by strangers getting to know each other.

Photograph by: ruigsantos
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When Casey Coleman decided to spend a year telling only the truth, it became immediately obvious he’d need to be honest with himself, too. A lifetime of facade took less than a week to unravel, as the college student ended things with his girlfriend and acknowledged his attraction to men.

“The lies you tell yourself are the ones that help you sleep at night,” says Coleman, 20. “I grew up in a small town where there were a lot of negative stereotypes about being gay . . . But I finally said to myself, ‘I’m tired of having to hide who I am.’”

Polls find the average person will admit to telling two lies a day, even as lab experiments reveal that as many fibs are told in just 10 minutes by strangers getting to know each other. Noted social psychologist Dan Ariely says the reality is that fudging the facts has become so second-nature, most of us don’t realize how often we do it.

Parents preach that honesty is the best policy, all the while instructing their kids to feign happiness when opening an unwanted gift. When people are tardy, they blame “bad traffic.” And when presented with an infant who poses a risk to mirrors, friends nonetheless coo, “How cute!”

“We have this education for dishonesty. But we don’t think of ourselves as liars when we do it because we think we’re doing it for a good cause,” says Ariely, professor of behavioural economics at Duke University and author of the new book The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty.

He recalls, for example, doctors assuring him he had nothing to fear when being treated for serious burns, despite their knowing he had every reason to be fearful. Ariely was grateful for the deception.

“It’s an incredible social lubricant,” says Ariely. “Who would want to live with somebody who told the perfect truth all the time?”

Coleman is finding out.

Seven months into his experiment, the broadcasting student says he’s already lost three close friends to honesty. But he cites no regrets with his decision to be 100 per cent truthful.

“Some days I wake up and think, ‘Why am I doing this?’” says Coleman, who is blogging the experience at mebeinghonest.com. “But overall, I find I’m a lot happier . . . I was finally able to embrace myself.”

Phil Callaway, a humourist from central Alberta, documented his own year of truth-telling in the recent book, To Be Perfectly Honest. He credits the self-made acronym THINK for saving his marriage during that time: Is it True? Is it Helpful? Does it Inspire? Is it Necessary? Am I Kind about it?

“I learned that a closed mouth gathers no foot but, in my defence, what do you do when (your wife) asks what you think of the soup, or if you’d like to go visit her mother for the weekend?” says Callaway, who emerged from the experience determined to lead an authentic life.

“Sounds idealistic but all of us admire a person who can be trusted. We’d much prefer that kind of person as captain of a cruise ship.”

Clinical psychologist Vivian Diller says people must learn to thoughtfully tell the truth, which she notes is different from brutal honesty.

“If we didn’t know how to censor ourselves or how to modulate truth, we’d ruin our jobs and our relationships,” says Diller. “To tell the complete truth all the time doesn’t allow you to live in society.”

Callaway admits his year of honest living saw two exceptions: speaking engagements, which demand hyperbole, and visits with his mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s.

“When she gazed out over the windswept prairies and said, ‘Aren’t those boats wonderful? I like the purple one best,’ I agreed completely and even found myself pointing out guys on Sea-Doos,” recalls Callaway. “She thought I was crazy.”

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